Apple reported the financial results for its holiday quarter late last month, and for the most part they killed it—the company set records for revenue, iPhone sales, and iPad sales during the 3-month period. But all Wall Street saw was declining growth.
The Cupertino tech giant’s stock dropped 8% that day in after-hours trading, falling from $550 per share to $500, and it has yet to rebound. But Tim Cook says Apple’s taking advantage of the unexpected price drop by going on a major buyback spree…
In a interview yesterday afternoon, Cook told The Wall Street Journal that Apple has bought back more than $40 billion of its shares over the past 12 months. And somewhere around $14 billion of that occurred since its Q1 report, just two weeks ago.
“Apple Inc. AAPL +1.08% has bought $14 billion of its own shares in the two weeks since reporting financial results that disappointed Wall Street, Chief Executive Tim Cook said in an interview.
Mr. Cook said Apple was “surprised” by the 8% decline in its shares on Jan. 28, the day after it reported lower iPhone sales than projected and warned that revenue in the current quarter might decline from the same period a year ago. Mr. Cook said he wanted to be “aggressive” and “opportunistic.”
With the latest purchases, Mr. Cook said Apple had bought back more than $40 billion of its shares over the past 12 months, which Mr. Cook said was a record for any company over a similar span.”
Cook says that Apple’s recent share repurchasing shows that his team is extremely confident in what they are doing and what they plan to do. “It means we’re betting on Apple,” he said. “We’re not just saying that. We’re showing it with our actions.”
In addition to Apple’s capital return program, the CEO discussed a wide range of topics with the Journal including his take on the company’s slowing growth and its stance on acquisitions. He also reiterated that it has some major new products in the pipeline.